On September 9, 2021, President Joe Biden declared that he was signing executive orders to mandate that all executive-branch federal employees and employees of federal contractors be vaccinated. He also announced that he had directed the Department of Labor to draft an emergency OSHA rule that would mandate businesses of 100 or more employees to require its personnel to either be vaccinated or be subjected to weekly COVID testing. He further proclaimed that he was expanding his prior vaccine mandate directed at nursing home workers to also cover those who work in hospitals, home health care facilities and other medical facilities. The President’s speech was striking in three aspects: its tone, its timing, and its content.
The Tone
There are a lot of words that come to mind to describe the tone of the President’s speech, with “frustrated” and “angry” topping the list. And, in some people’s view, the President has good reason to be frustrated and angry. But rather than giving a speech of forceful conviction, the President’s delivery was so off-putting that he came across as intemperate and scornful. Instead of presenting himself as a confident leader, Joe Biden sounded like a grumpy curmudgeon yelling at neighbor kids to get off his lawn.
The President’s ire was directed at unvaccinated Americans, a populace that he referred to multiple times in his speech as “80 million” in scope. While the President’s emotions appear to be sincere, the contemptuous tone that he utilized during his speech directed toward his own citizenry diminished the import of his messaging.
The Timing
Besides the derisive tone of the President’s speech, the timing of the address was ill-advised. Simply stated: it was in poor taste to give such a divisive speech only two days prior to the twentieth anniversary of 9/11. We are more than a year and a half into this pandemic-era and the vaccine has been widely-available in the United States for months. Was it really imperative for the President to deliver this castigating and polarizing oratory on September 9th as opposed to respectfully waiting until the following week?
Moreover, the timing of the speech raises more questions of credibility as to his administration’s intentions and lack of transparency in regard to its position on federal restrictions on the liberty interests of the American people.
On July 23, 2021, the President’s Chief Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, in response to a question regarding whether the government should step in and issue mandates, unequivocally stated “***that’s not the role of the federal government; that is the role that institutions, private-sector entities, and others may take.” (See: whitehouse.gov, Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jen Psaki, July 23, 2021; emphasis added).
Yet, less than a week later, President Biden proclaimed that “* * * every federal government employee will be asked to attest to their vaccination status. Anyone who does not attest or is not vaccinated will be required to mask no matter where they work; test one or two times a week to see if they have a — they have acquired COVID; socially distance; and generally will not be allowed to travel for work.” He also indicated that he was directing his administration “to take steps to apply similar standards to all federal contractors.” Biden added, “If you want to do business with the federal government, get your workers vaccinated.” (See: whitehouse.gov, Remarks by President Biden Laying out the Next Steps in our Efforts to Get More Americans Vaccinated and to Combat the Delta Variant, July 29, 2021).
Moreover, only a few weeks later, in the midst of his administration’s bungled execution of the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, President Biden gave a mid-week address, revealing that he would utilize the power of the federal government to require nursing homes to have a vaccinated workforce in order to participate in Medicare and Medicaid. Biden’s August 18th announcement directed at private-sector nursing homes was an abrupt departure from the line rattled off by his chief spokesperson on July 23, 2021. (See: whitehouse.gov, Remarks of President Biden on Fighting the Covid-19 Pandemic, August 18, 2021).
And then, only a month and a half after Psaki’s “not-the-role-of-the-federal-government” assurance, the President acted in direct contravention to that position and announced the most recent, wide-sweeping mandates on September 9th. This abrupt switch in the Biden-Harris administration’s position is stunning because of the short time frame in which the pivoting occurred.
Now, anyone who has been employed in a policy-making capacity in state or local government – whether in an elected or appointed position – is cognizant that significant policy decisions, particularly those that affect personnel, customarily go through a thorough analytical process by legal counsel before action is taken. At the local government level, attorneys for public bodies typically review proposed decisions that may affect personnel and opine as to a variety of matters, such as: the source, if any, of the legal authority for such proposed action, the nature of claims that may be lodged should the policy be enacted, the likelihood of successfully defending any claims on the merits, and, whether, in the instance of a unionized workforce, the proposed change is subject to mandatory bargaining. Depending on the complexity of the issues that are involved, legal review of a proposed policy may take months.
In the instance of the Biden-Harris mandates, based on the complexities of the legal issues and the wide-sweeping institutional and private-sector ramifications, combined with the likelihood of anticipated litigation, it would be quite extraordinary for a comprehensive legal review and a reliable plan for implementation to have been completed in a mere six-week period. Most importantly, it would seem prudent that a new OSHA rule which affects millions of American workers and could cause significant disruption in individual private-sector businesses would be something that would be discussed and analyzed internally for months – as opposed to a mere six weeks- before announcing it to the public.
Tellingly, the text of the OSHA rule has not even been rolled out yet, but a number of states and organizations have already threatened litigation against the President’s actions, with Arizona having already filed suit. Unfortunately, if the Biden-Harris administration’s bungling of the withdrawal of troops in Afghanistan is any indicator of how smoothly the Biden-Harris-vaccine mandate is going to be administered, we can anticipate there will be a lot of confusion, upheaval and plenty of sleepless nights for business owners, managers, human resources directors, and employees, across the nation.
The Content
There is a theme of Joe Biden’s administration and that is: The buck really doesn’t stop here, because it’s always somebody else’s fault. Biden served as a United States senator for more than thirty years, so it is possible that he is accustomed to being able to deflect blame onto others, such as the other house, or the other party, or the other branch. And when he was the vice president for eight years, it was President Obama in charge, making the weighty decisions and bearing the responsibility. But, now, Joe Biden is in charge and who does he blame? The people of the country – well, at least eighty million of them – as well as some Republican Governors.
Now, when an individual is in charge of an entity, whether private or public, pointing the finger of blame at someone else usually does not engender confidence in that person’s leadership abilities. When an individual is holding a leadership role, to blame others for failures in decision-making or execution of plans comes off as unseemly, and is usually perceived as a sign of weakness or incompetence.
And it is this constant “blame game” of the Biden-Harris administration that is so demonstrative of its failure to effectively lead the nation. For example, Biden’s speech was peppered with contemptuous comments directed at what he labeled a “distinct minority” of Americans such as “We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin,” and “This is not about freedom or personal choice” and “a distinct minority of Americans –supported by a distinct minority of elected officials — are keeping us from turning the corner.” This strident and polarizing language by the President was primarily directed toward the individuals who constitute the “distinct minority” of eighty-million American citizens: the clerk, the teacher, the nurse, the doctor, the mechanic, the athlete, the police officer, the gas station attendant, the accountant, the bus driver, the certified nursing assistant, and the pastor, who refuse to consent to the vaccination for private reasons.
It is not a very flattering trait to habitually deflect blame onto someone else: particularly when you’re the leader of the country and you’re casting aspersions on eighty-million citizens. Jen Psaki seemed to get this when, during the July 23rd press briefing, she responded to a question concerning whether the administration should “be taking a sharper tone against unvaccinated people for putting vaccinated people at risk.” Psaki responded by stating, in part, “Well, I don’t think our role is to place blame * * *” and “We’re not — but we’re not here to place blame or threats; we’re here to provide accurate information.”
Evidently, the Biden-Harris administration’s position in that regard went by the wayside quickly, just like its former position that it’s not the role of the federal government to order vaccine mandates.
Public health of the citizenry is important, but so too, is the institutional health of the republic important. In a time when the nation is sorely in need of unifying, steadying and inspiring leadership, the President’s September 9th vaccine-mandate speech was divisive and ill-conceived. Rather than compassionately motivating people to voluntarily get vaccinated, the President’s carefully-crafted inflammatory language may only serve to alienate, stigmatize and disenfranchise the “distinct minority” of Americans.